When Marc had finished, Durham sat back wearily and asked, “How far can we trust anything these prostitutes say?”
“I believe we have to be skeptical of anything they tell us. The denizens of Irishtown don’t exactly revere authority of any kind. What Cobb and I have endeavoured to do is to look for inconsistencies and to tally their claims against those incontrovertible facts we do know. For instance, none of the victim’s blood left the bedroom except for that on the bare feet of your nephew. Cobb himself saw the dagger in the young man’s hand, with no evidence that anyone else had entered the room after the stabbing to stage a false scene. It’s conceivable that all four women were in on it together, but we have found no plausible motive yet for such an assumption, nor do we have a rational explanation for how they might have managed it.”
“I see.”
“So it is important in that regard to verify the timeline. We need to know for sure when Mr. Ellice left Spadina and, if possible, whom he left with.”
Durham smiled. “I can help you there. As I mentioned this morning, I ordered Wakefield to question the servants carefully about what they observed last evening. Mr. Wakefield is both persuasive and thorough.”
Marc’s heart leapt. “He found out who lured Mr. Ellice away?”
“Not quite. But here is what he believes to be a reliable account of what happened. It was about ten-thirty when Handford left us to try his luck at whist. He was observed to join one of the tables and keep to it for the remainder of the evening. One of the four gentlemen already there would give up his seat for fifteen minutes or so-putting in a token appearance with his wife in the ballroom, no doubt-then return and take the seat of another, who left in turn, and so on.”
“I think I know the four gentlemen in question,” Marc said, to Durham’s surprise.
“You do?”
Marc named the foursome that he and Owen had observed from their vantage-point in the smoker: the Reverend Temperance Finney, Alasdair Hepburn, Patrick O’Driscoll, and Samuel Harris.
“Precisely. And you know these gentlemen?”
“Good Tories all,” Marc said. “Finney is a fire-and-brimstone Methodist, Hepburn runs the Commercial Bank, O’Driscoll is second-in-command of the Orange Lodge, and Samuel Harris is a wealthy landowner in town and an importer of dry goods.”
“You suspect there may have been some skullduggery in that card room?”
“It’s possible. Though I think that whatever happened there was partly improvised. But before I bore you with my theories, please tell me more of what actually happened.”
“Several times Handford accompanied one or another of the gentlemen to the bar for a drink before Handford was sent back to rejoin the whist. All this was apparently convivial. Nonetheless, one of the servants was alarmed at Handford’s state of inebriation and went looking for my valet. He couldn’t find him, and when he returned to his post, Handford was gone-to his quarters, the man assumed.”
“Did he leave the whist table alone?”
“Yes.”
“Not with one of the players?”
“No. They were there until nearly midnight.”
Marc’s hopes sank. They had to find the culprit who drove Ellice into town.
“But he was spotted leaving the grounds.” Durham smiled at the effect this revelation had. “At precisely ten minutes past midnight, in one of the carriages, accompanied by a gentleman and possibly his lady.”
“Then it could have been one of the whist players after all. Do we know who?”
“Alas, no. Two different stableboys saw Handford stagger into the carriage, but neither can recall whose carriage it was-only that it was likely a barouche. It was dark and several other carriages were leaving about the same time.”
“Damn. Most of the guests came in barouches.”
“Wakefield will continue the investigation out at Spadina. It’s still possible that someone will recall something of significance.”
“I hope so. But this new information is helpful. It tallies with the account of events given by the women at Madame Renée’s, and makes it almost impossible to believe that they had time to perpetrate the crime as a group and cover their tracks. And it suggests that Mr. Ellice was plied with drink-possibly even drugged-and may have been seduced into accompanying one of the whist players.”
“Those conclusions, however tentative, sound reasonable to me.”
“If true, it narrows our search to four men, not the dozens now scattered across three counties.”
“Though it is not inconceivable that a fifth conspirator may have been engaged to do the transporting.”
“Perhaps, but I now have four people to interrogate that I didn’t have half an hour ago.”
Durham looked at Marc as if unsure how he should broach the point he felt obliged to make. “I think we have to be extremely tactful in how we go about interrogating prominent citizens about a murder, especially those not known to be Whig sympathizers.”
“But I-”
“And that is why I invited you to lead the investigation rather than leaving it to the local authorities.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Durham dredged up a smile and said, “Now, I sense you’re keen to begin theorizing.”
Marc smiled back. “Yes, sir, I am.” And with that, he sketched out his hypothesis-now reinforced by Wakefield’s report from Spadina-that the murder was the result of a conspiracy to derail His Lordship’s mission and its perceived pro-Reform bias. One or more of the whist players-Finney, Hepburn, O’Driscoll, Harris-had arranged to get Ellice drunk and lure him to a brothel. Hiding close by was a recruited thug, who knew the routine of the house and possessed a key to its hidden entrance, not six feet from the door to the victim’s room. When the house was quiet, said thug slipped in, slunk into the cubicle where Sarah McConkey and Ellice were asleep (his snores audible through the netted opening of the window), and created mayhem.
“Surely the slaughter of an innocent girl-fallen soul though she was-seems a bit extravagant for the purpose of embroiling my family in a scandal,” Durham ventured.
“I agree, sir. As I mentioned earlier, Badger had a personal grudge in addition to his need for money, but even so, I don’t believe he was paid to kill anyone. When we apprehend him-”
“If we do-”
“If we do, then I’ll bet we find that he was hired to beat up the girl, perhaps knocking her unconscious, then scoot back out the hatch before the women were wakened and came running in. That would be enough to compromise your nephew, especially if the respectable citizen who set this up informed the police or encouraged Mrs. Burgess to make a complaint. Or perhaps Badger was meant to break Mr. Ellice’s leg or otherwise incapacitate him so he would be found there in disgrace.”
Durham looked skeptical. “Would he be able to do any of this and get away?”
“I believe so, for two reasons. First, he was a professional bruiser. He made his living by intimidating rowdies and beating people up. He’d have little trouble silencing Sarah while he clubbed her unconscious or smashing a leg with a brick, and then retreating through an unlocked escape hatch only steps away.”
“And all this to sabotage my mission?”
Marc grimaced. “I’m afraid so. Remember, we just fought a bloody civil war over the fate of these provinces, and publicly hanged several of the rebels. Even as we speak, our borders are being threatened by Yankee fanatics.”
Durham nodded in sad agreement, then said, “Well, it’s a plausible theory. But as I see it, we need to find two men before we can take it one premise further: Michael Badger and the man who took him to the brothel.”
“Cobb is heading to the Tinker’s Dam tonight to look for Badger and check out Mrs. Burgess’s characterization of him as a reckless gambler and deadbeat.”